Named after the plaza at the Queens end of the Queensboro Bridge.
The station and square were first called Queensboro Bridge Plaza, or simply Bridge Plaza. The bridge, named for the borough of Queens, had officially been called the Blackwell’s Island Bridge in 1902; in 1908 businessmen proposed ‘Queensboro’ because the island’s name was too closely linked with its hospitals and asylums. It opened in 1909 and since 2011 has officially been the Ed Koch Queensboro Bridge.